As I sit down to write this review I must admit that I am

somewhat disappointed in myself for not having begun this endeavor

sooner. Not because it is a task that I have a great interest in doing,
but because it is something that I simply must do in order to achieve
some semblance of catharsis. Having waiting far too long I must
recourse to referencing the feelings that have stayed with me these
weeks since completing E.L. Jamess best-selling Fifty Shades of Grey.
Any critique of a production of the imagination must necessarily, for
the sake of fairness, attempt to see both the good and the bad in the
work before deciding on which side the scale falls, and it is in that spirit
that I will direct my attention towards explaining why this novel is as
popular as it is.
The first thing that simply must be said about Fifty Shades is that
it is very easy to ingest and digest. James vocabulary is within the
range of any English-speaking person and she should be applauded for
not overreaching herself in order to achieve the desired effect. By
staying within her lexical limits, James manages to focus much more
on story-telling, and even I am forced to admit that she manages to
command the readers interest, forcing them to keep turning the pages
in order to find out what will happen next to the protagonist. This
combination of great-tasting and easily digestible material renders
Fifty Shades a story that, although one might wish they could devour in
a single bit, a literary meal that is simultaneously sates the readers
hungry while forever leaving him unsatisfied. Put simply, Jamess
writing style is addictive and the only means of dealing with this
addiction is to indulge, or quit cold turkey. I was able to achieve both
paths in my experience with this author.
The other way in which James manages to invoke dependency in
her readers is the subject matter, which is quite obviously the greatest
draw of the novel to the vast majority of its readers. Everyone has
heard of the novel, both because of the general subject matter sex
sells is a statement that will always hold true and because of the
specific and taboo topic of Bondage-Domination & Sado-Masochism
(BDSM). The first point needs no further elaboration from me, but I
think a brief attempt to explain the second is worthwhile, though
slightly too easy. I would contend that nearly every reader of this will
be aware of the fact that despite what persons are willing to disclose to
others about their preferences in public, there is a long-list of interests
that humans have that they are usually unwilling to disclose. The
advent of prophylaxis has enabled humanity to fully explore their own
sexual preferences without having to fear the notorious consequences
of sexual play that has dominated most of human history. There is a
robust, undiscovered (for most humans) literature that seeks to explore
and describe the various forms that sexual desire may take, and I am
not very surprised that a novel that seeks to explore one of these
darker forms has become very popular.

Jamess choice to take the first-person perspective of an

uninitiated woman as her mode of narration could explain her novels
popularity since the reader is able to own the protagonists innocence
with respect to the dark side of human sexual identity. This method of
delivery does not just provide a safe vantage point for the individual
reader, but also for readers who wish to discuss the novel with each
other. By displacing the readers curiosity and interest onto the
narrator fans of the novel are able to indirectly discuss their own
curiosity and intrigue with each other while evading the implication
that they themselves are directly interested in BDSM sex. This is
actually quite an impressive accomplishment for an author that I had
so gravely underestimated, and is yet another reason why Fifty Shades
is to be commended if only for surreptitiously rendering a taboo form
of sexuality as mainstream.
Having given my reasons for this novel being significant and
popular I have finally freed myself for the negative aspects of my
critique, which I feel are much more robust and persuasive. Before I
begin I must stress that persons should still read the novel lest they be
tempted to take my personal review as the be all end all review of this
intriguing cultural phenomenon. Stressing the importance of forming
ones opinion for oneself I will now give my best attempt to give as
accurate and objective criticism of the novel as a possibly can.
The first thing I simply must note (in fact, the first thing that I
noticed before I even opened the book for the first time) is that
discussions of the novel seem to suggest that one of its primary uses is
as a masturbatory aide for women who have weathered menopause
and are seeking stimulation. This might be vague but it is a moral
certainty that the majority of readers are female, and that the graphic
depictions of sex contained throughout the novel no doubt fulfill this
function to some extent or another. Well, if we accept that this is the
purpose of Fifty Shades then I think it only fair to grade the novels
merit on this basis. One simply cannot help but notice the Jamess
unimaginative naming of the two main characters of this story.
Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey might as well be names taken
directly from a pornographic movie, which might have been her intent,
although one would imagine that she could have conveyed the same
effect without having to resort to such a blatantly clich nomination.
One could argue that the latters name is a necessity due to the title of
the novel, which is an amalgamation of the anti-heros surname and
the protagonists description of his being fifty shades of fucked up. I
would accept this argument although I still think that the choice of title
leaves the work open to my most basic attempt to discredit the
banality of Jamess writing style.
Fifty Shades of Grey is an apt title for a story that is written in
such a manner that one simply cannot miss the novels sheer lack of
color. Writing about humanitys most carnal desires is a cheap way of

adding color to a story, and is easily displaced by Jamess inability to

describe the act of fornication with language that would merit the
adjective risqu. Having read the first book of Mario Puzos
Godfather I believe that I can state ambivalently that writing about sex
is more complicated than merely writing about sex. A talented writer
can really make an person of basic sexual experience really imagine
the act being described while a less skilled writer can only give the
most base and bland description of the act. An argument against this
perspective would take the form of referencing the inexperience of our
narrator effecting the description of the acts in which she participates,
but this seems to be to easy of an out. If sexuality is the main theme
of the novel, one would expect that the author ought to do her best to
convey this theme in such a way that does justice to this theme in
spite of the inexperience of the narrator. The reader has surely noticed
the way James casually evades using any direct references to the
genitalia of either participant, and only attempts a direct reference
after more than three-quarters of the novel has run its course.
I could not shake the feeling that James had written all of the
descriptions of Miss Steele and Mr. Greys sexual encounters
beforehand and had only recycled this sole description throughout the
novel with slight variation. Perhaps she was attempting to make the
point that the sexual act can become, or in fact is, commonplace, but I
would not grant James the credit of having such lofty sexual
existentialist themes in mind. Thus, I simply must suggest that she
was rather uninspired in her descriptions and that this salient fact
simply cannot be ignored. Perhaps she means to highlight the
distinction between vanilla sex and more adventurous acts, but again
I am forced to the conclusion that James did not have such lofty goals
in mind while writing the novel. I would buttress this point by the fact
that she overuses the adjective dryly in describing Greys chosen
manner of speaking, but even with my limited vocabulary I cannot help
but notice that introducing the term arid occasionally would have at
least added some spice and variation to her description of his
demeanor. The point is to make Grey seems robotic, but the effect is
that Steele seems unable to vary her descriptions of him, which
suggests that her imagination might, in fact, be the infertile culprit of
this description.
I hope that I am not the only reader who was completely
disgusted by the protagonists use of oh my and her embodiment of
her sexuality as an inner goddess to be contrasted with the
personification of her conscience. This seems to suggest that ones
sexuality and innocence cannot be contained within the same mind
without dissonance, but this seems to hold these two concepts in
opposition and, at least in my opinion, seems to suggest contempt for
human sexuality. For a novel that is supposed to be aimed at liberating
female sexuality, the suggestion that women keep two sets of books

with respect to sexual desire and moral conscience implies that female
sexuality is not just something that is repressed, but further that it is
something that ought to be repressed. Despite my Christian
upbringing I do not regard females in this way and I was disappointed
that James seems to. Again one might parry my point by repeating the
fact of Steeles sexual innocence, but this only leads me back to the
aspect of Fifty Shades that most unnerved me in the first place.